THE MOTOR BOAT 



lunger is the best sauce, and somehow I was not 

 urprised at the way in which Jerry and Veronica 

 >macked their lips over it. It was not until late in 

 the afternoon that Jerry judged it safe to venture on 

 the sea again, and then we ploughed along the 

 troughs of huge waves, with the water flopping 

 imply over us, and so reached Okak. 



" Tikkikise ? " said Jerry's wife, big placid 

 Sibilla, " uigarnerasugi ai, ai " (I thought I was a 

 widow) and then the two of them laughed and 

 ;rudged away home together. 



Writing about the motor- boat makes me think of 

 Benjie. 



Benjie is a small boy of five or six years, and the 

 way he comes into the story is this. He was romp- 

 ng on the jetty with some other boys, when he 

 tumbled into the seven feet of water that we have 

 at high tide. The others clambered down and fished 

 lim out, limp and half choked, and brought him to 

 lospital. 



The child was soon fit to be out of doors, and we 

 sent him home to his grandmother's hut, where he 

 acted as general servant, wood-chopper, water-fetcher, 

 fisherman, and what-not in the intervals of his play. 

 Thereafter he seemed to be always hanging about 

 the hospital steps, becoming strangely eager and 

 restive at the least sign of our going out of doors : 

 this turned out to be his odd way of showing his 

 appreciation of the comforts of hospital he had 

 elected himself chief general helper on the motor 

 boat ! It was useless to talk to the boy ; he was as 

 deaf as a board ; but he used to wait out there with 

 dog-like devotion for some sign. A thumb jerked 



over one's shoulder meant oars to Benjie, and away 



305 u 



